29 DECEMBER 1917, Page 3

Our readers will share our deep regret at the news

that Lieutenant Joseph Lee, of the King's Royal Rifles, is reported missing. Mr. Lee was one of the many young soldiers who found, in the new and trying experiences of war, that they were poets, and as a sergeant in the Black Watch he contributed some admirable verses to our columns. We may recall his fine adaptation of Simonides' epigram on the Spartan dead at Thermopylae to the case of our own gallant men—

Here do we lie, dead but not discontent,

"That which we found to do has had accomprahrnent "— and his" Poem of Leave," published so recently as August 11th last, in which the soldier, seeing the dear Homeland twain, is moved to tears that would not flow at the sight of battle-horrors, and yet is stimulated anew by the thought that he is fighting to save his country.